


Began

by ibohemianam



Series: Chaconne [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Fest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9847736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibohemianam/pseuds/ibohemianam
Summary: Cassian Jeron Andor was six years old when he smuggled himself onto a cargo ship bound for Fest. He would remain there for eleven years and return, much later, for a few more. pre-Rogue One.





	1. Six

**Author's Note:**

> One chapter per year, each chapter a rough sketch.
> 
> On the continuum of _A Little Bit of Everything_ to _Alternatively_ , this one will fall more towards _Alternatively,_ in both style and update schedule. I’m shooting for 1-3 updates per week on this bit since daily updates on _ALBOE_ nearly drove me out of my mind.

Jeron was alone.

He curled up in the corner of the cargo hold as the ship shuddered, shrugged through the atmosphere of some distant planet.

He saw white through the viewport. He imagined they were in the clouds, floating, not falling.

He closed his eyes and drew his knees closer to his chest.

That was a mistake.

He saw his mother, his father. The flames that lit the beach, that clouded the blue sea, that scorched the white sand.

He opened his eyes and saw white.

The ship lurched, groaned to a stop.

He sprang to his feet.

 _You’re a smart boy, Jer,_ his mother said, running a hand through his hair, _I know you’ll be the best at whatever you want to do._

He angrily swallowed tears. his life.

 _You’re a big boy now, Jer_ , his father said, laughing, _Six years old today! What’s that? A grey hair?_

He felt like he’d lived a long time.

Clambering onto a large stack of crates, he peered out the viewport. Still white. Had they really landed? He couldn’t hear the engines anymore.

He pressed a hand to the transparisteel. It was cold.

He squinted, and through the white, he could make out the faint glow of distant red lights. Landing nav lights, he realized. He’d helped his mother put them up around the village’s first landing pad just last week.

But why was it so white outside? Where was the sky?

 _Have I seen snow?_ his father laughed, one arm around his stomach, pulling them close together beside the fire in the sand, _I’m from Alderaan. Of course I’ve seen snow. It’s beautiful--if you don’t have to be out in it!_

Jeron shivered, curling his toes and tucking his hands into his armpits.

The ’ship blared an alarm, and he froze for a moment before realizing it was the alarm for the loading ramp, which had begun to creak open.

He slipped the cover off of the crate beside him and dove inside, pulling the lid shut over his head. In the darkness, he pressed himself against cold durasteel, smooth and firm beneath his hands. Fumbling, he felt out the elongated barrels, the textured, dimpled grip.

A blaster.

He felt around. A crate full of them.

His mother had shouted at him once, only once, and it had been because she’d caught him in her closet, a depleted charge magazine in his hand and confusion on his face.

The loading ramp completed its descent, and he froze again, one hand wrapped not entirely around a magazine. Bootsteps and howling wind.

No one said anything.

Jeron pressed a hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing. His crate was lifted into the air, and he tumbled onto his side, a falling blaster knocking the air from his lungs.

A violent jolt, and he was set back down on the ground, the cold seeping through almost immediately. Another crate thumped down on top of him. And another.

The ‘ship’s alarm sounded again, much more distantly now, and, with a dull roar, the cargo ’ship lifted off and slowly melted away into the cold and wind.

Jeron pressed up at the synthwood lid. It didn’t move. Of course.

He didn’t feel like a smart boy right now. He felt very stupid. And very cold.

 _You have to learn to be patient_ , his father said, exasperated, _You can’t_ make _the fish come to you. Just wait. They’ll come._

“I’m sorry,” Jeron whispered, wrapping his arms around his knees.

 _It’s okay, Jer,_ his mother said, _Things like this happen. But you can always tell us anything, you know? We’ll never stop loving you._

Jeron pressed his face into his arms and felt very cold and frightened and alone.

* * *

“ _Jaira fark,_ Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. He’s not moving or anything.”

“Farking Republic _shavit_. They’ve dragged even the children into this karking mess.”

“Joreth, I think he’s alive.”

“ _Fark!_ Are you sure? These crates were out there for several standard at least.”

“Yeah. He’s breathing.”

“Well, go on, then. I’ll take him down to medbay. Bring these up to Travia.”

“Joreth--”

“--If you’re about to tell me that he could be a Separatist spy, you can go--”

“--alright, alright, I’m going.”

Jeron blinked, or tried to, when he felt strong hands lift him out of the crate. Everything was numb, heavy, like the morning fog that would roll in across the shore during the winter months. A small, pained sound escaped him, and the arms cradling his head and legs stiffened, gathering him tighter to a chest that smelled of smoke and sweat.

“It’s alright, little one,” a deep voice rumbled, low and comforting, “We’ll sort you out quick as you like.”

This man’s Basic sounded like his mother’s, rough and gentle all at once. Jeron cracked an eye open and made out a fuzzy mass of ginger hair, constant through the flickering overhead lights.

The man looked down at him. He had a kind face.

“Ah, there we are,” he said, bright eyes crinkling at the corners, “Halloo. Keep those lovely eyes open now, lad. We’re nearly there.”

 _You have your father’s eyes_ , his mother said, a smile on her lips, sadness in her eyes, _Those lovely, brown eyes_.

Tears surged again--and he struggled, fought to keep them down because he was six years old, he shouldn’t be crying like a baby. He turned away limply, scrunching his eyes shut.

The man sighed, and it was like the sound the jaffa trees made in the summer.

“It’s alright, lad,” he murmured, holding him tighter, “It’s alright.”

It wasn’t alright. This man didn’t understand. No one could understand.

He cried silently, alone and ashamed.

* * *

When he woke again, he was cold.

He opened his eyes. He was alone. He sat up, clutching his blanket to his chest, trying not to be frightened. There were many other beds in this room, all of them empty in dim yellow light. He shivered.

“Hello?” he said in Basic, the word thick and unwieldy.

Silence.

Jeron tensed, gathering his bandaged feet under him.

A very small girl poked her head into the room.

They stared at each other.

“Hi,” she said, finally.

He licked his lips, parched.

“Hi,” he replied.

“Who’re you?” she demanded, stepping into the room, “There aren’t supposed to be any other kids here.”

“I’m--” he hesitated. Who was he now, in this strange place, this strange planet? “--Cassian,” he said vaguely.

The girl made a face.

“That’s a weird name,” she said.

“No, it’s not,” he said, bewildered, “There’s a lot of people named Cassian.”

The girl made another face.

“You talk funny,” she said.

“That’s mean,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said, lifting her chin.

Perplexed, he looked down at her from his bed.

“Who’re _you?_ ” he demanded.

“I’m _Tantim_ ,” she replied, frowning, “Everyone knows who I am. Why don’t you?”

“I’m not--” he stopped himself, suddenly remembering the blasters in the crate, the burning beaches of Scarif. “It’s none of your business,” he snapped.

Her eyes narrowed, and Jeron made fists in his blanket, ready for a fight.

“Tantim!” a voice called from the hall, “Your mother’s looking for you!”

Tantim made another face, nose scrunching.

“I don’t like you,” she said, one last parting shot, then turned and scurried out into the hall.

Jeron stared after her, perplexed and a little hurt. He hadn’t had many friends on Scarif, and even those were all dead now. He’d been stupid to even think about making friends when everyone he knew was dead. Stupid. He didn’t even know where he was. What planet was this, where the sky was white?

He pushed the blankets off his legs and swung them over the edge of the bed, swinging in the cold. Everything was cold. He slid to the ground, wincing a little as his bandaged feet complained. He took a step. It hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as the time he’d split his foot open on a mussel bed. He looked around for his clothes, tugging at the large, loose tunic that fell past his knees.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice rumbled.

Startled, Jeron looked up, up, up from his scrutiny of his bandaged toes into a large face framed by an explosion of wild hair.

“Nothing,” he said.

“That looks like a lot of nothing to me, lad,” the man said.

Jeron shifted from foot to foot uneasily.

“Where am I?” he asked, “Who’re you?”

“This is Fest,” the man said, crouching so they were level, eye-to-eye, “And my name is Joreth. What’s yours?”

Jeron looked away.

“Cassian,” he said quietly.

“Cassian,” Joreth repeated, “That’s a good name. How did you end up here on Fest, Cassian?”

Jeron stared at his feet, hands clenched behind his back in the hem of his tunic.

“I was in a ship,” he said reluctantly, “I needed a place to hide.”

“Smart lad,” Joreth said, and Jeron looked quickly up at him, surprised. “Where did you get on this ship, eh? You look like you’ve come a long way.”

Jeron bit his lip. He looked over Joreth’s shoulder to the open door. If he ran, he might be able to make it through before he was caught.

“It’s alright, Cassian,” Joreth said gently, “No one will hurt you here.”

Jeron looked into his startlingly blue eyes and sensed he was telling the truth.

“I’m from--” and his throat closed traitorously again when he realized he couldn’t remember the Basic name for his home. He trembled mutely, hands clenched. “I’m from--” he tried again--

_Mama! Listen to what I learned to say today!_

_Careful, Jer!_ his mother laughed, _Your Basic’s going to be better than your Scryllic soon. Then we’ll have to send you away._

 _My Scryllic will always be better than my Basic, Mama_ , he said proudly, _This is Scarif. Why would I ever want to go anywhere else?_

 _Oh, you never know, Jer_ , his mother said,  _One day, you might want to leave this boring place. There's a whole wide galaxy out there. Much more than just--_

“-- _Scarif!_ ” he shouted, " _I'm from Scarif!"_

And then he was sobbing again because his Scryllic would always be better than his Basic, and the whole wide galaxy would never be enough.

* * *

Joreth took the boy in. Fed him. Hemmed his tunics, found him boots, an extra coat.

He’d planned on telling Travia, but she’d left for Generis the night the boy had arrived, and he hardly thought she’d be one to say their “resistance” was no place for a child.

The boy was smart in that wily way that came from a childhood of being small and young in a big, old world. He quickly understood the situation on Fest, if not the “resistance” against the Republic that had sprung up.

The resistance of which Joreth was second-in-command.

He asked, quietly, about Scarif.

Most had never heard of it.

“It’s supposed to be some tropical paradise way out in the Abrion sector. Outer Rim,” Yltaron, their chief communications officer, had said, “But I don’t know anyone who’s ever been there. Doesn’t even have a spaceport.”

Scarif became just another world consumed, silently, by war.

And, even more likely, by the very clone armies the Jedi had denied ever existed.

This _farking_ war.

He did his best for the boy, shared his bunk, held him when he cried for his mama and papa. He did his best. He always had.

And so when their outpost was overrun by a renegade band of true resistance fighters, two weeks after Travia’s Republic contact had dropped off a shipment of blasters containing one small, frightened boy from some backwater Outer Rim planet, he stayed behind, plasma cannon in hand, shouting over his shoulder.

“Run!” he roared, “Run, Cassian! _Run!_ ”

He did his best, and when, from the cold, hard ground, he saw that the boy was gone, he knew he had done enough.

* * *

Cassian was alone again.

He had liked being alone, back at home. On Scarif.

Now, he was alone on a frozen planet, stumbling through narrow streets, overlarge boots slipping, sliding on slick ice.

He knew Joreth was dead. He’d seen him die.

He’d cried a little, and then his tears had frozen on his face, so he’d stopped that.

He found a narrow alley, a narrow doorway, shelter from the driving wind.

He sat and watched the white snow.

Curling up, he let the cold seep through his coat and into his bones as the world shuddered, shrugged, fell around him.


	2. Seven, Eight, Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is 19 BBY, and the Republic has fallen, not that anyone really notices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References [Chapter 13](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8875372/chapters/20755378) of _Sacrifice_.

He was small, and he was fast.

That was almost enough to keep him alive.

He learned to be mean. He learned to steal along walls, to press himself into the shadows, invisible to the passing patrols of this new Empire, this old enemy. He learned that discarded blaster cartridges could be sparked to white-hot flame if struck against the phrik foundation of the abandoned courthouse. He also learned that adding a twisted, oil-soaked rag to these cartridges would both delay and magnify the explosion of heat.

He learned to kill.

He went down into the abandoned phrik mines, wriggling under the barriers meant to deny entry to the toxic zones, eyes streaming, ragged scarf pressed to his mouth, picking through the debris for the raw ore he could sell to the silent woman in the frozen alley behind the shelter for enough credits to last him a week. She had kind eyes, this woman, and he knew she paid him more than she had to, so he brought little things back for her. A worn pair of gloves, dug from the slush left behind by a passing platoon. A warm hat, pulled from a cold head. And, once, a pair of boots.

He drifted. The years passed, cold and harsh, familiar.

One night, a man approached him in the street with a hot bun and told him to plant his cartridges on an approaching ground transport.

The bun was cold by the time he was finished, but the heat of the blast warmed him as he sat on the roof of the old cantina and watched Imperial troopers scream and burn.

The man found him again the next week, and he was on his feet, oil bladder of cartridges beating against his knees before the man could finish.

It wasn’t just a transport this time. It was a convoy, full of white helmets against brown snow, blankly marching down the main thoroughfare.

He remembered the fires of Scarif and brought the abandoned courthouse down on them, dashing through the rubble even before it had settled, snatching up blasters, comm units, anything he could carry, adding them to his secret hideaway deep in the toxic mines.

A different man found him that night, reeking of anger and betrayal, and he fled across the rooftops--he had always been good at climbing-- after sticking the man in the gut with his only knife.

He saw other children in the streets, small and cold, just like him.

He ignored them.

He learned not to care when the silent woman in the alley behind the shelter disappeared, leaving her boots behind in the snow. He disassembled his first blaster six days after that on his eighth birthday, not that he knew what days were anymore.

The man kept finding him, giving him work to do--work he gladly completed, baring his teeth viciously with every lit fuse shoved between the links of each transport track.

It took him six months to cobble together a delayed trigger mechanism from the remains of a squadron’s worth of comm units, but he learned about circuits and resistors from the abandoned comsat console in the mine, from the X-wing wreck at the boundary between city and toxic wasteland.

He learned that only phrik could cut phrik, so he modified a score of blasters into superheating lasers and began molding his own, creating small, sharp flints he could carry and quietly sell to the brooding figures lurking on street corners, sinking in their calculating hatred of the uniformed men tramping by the street.

He was nine years old when he learned that the mine was killing him, that his spit wasn’t supposed to glow in the night, that the blinding headaches that had begun and never ended would leech what remained of his life, turning him into one of the the useless, gibbering fools he saw lying half-dead in the street.

He didn’t know what good could come of his life but the destruction of the Empire.

The man did not tell him to, but he gathered up what blaster cartridges he had, tying them to long strips of oil-soaked cloth he crossed across his chest, around his waist, again and again. Over this, he pulled the threadbare cloak a man named Joreth had given him, yesterday or possibly never.

He tramped through the abandoned mine shafts that stretched for miles and miles beneath the surface and emerged in the heart of the Imperial research facility. His fingers twined through the wet fuse at his fingers, tapped against the flint in his belt.

Someone shouted, but not at him.

Muted sounds of blaster fire.

He walked through the snow across the deserted grounds into the durasteel building, deafened suddenly by close-quarter fire. To his left, Imperial troops, gleaming, pristine. To his right, pinned down in the hall, men and women, shouting defiantly, blasters in hand, hopelessly outnumbered.

His legs moved. His hands moved, striking fire.

He felt eyes on him. Friendly eyes. Familiar eyes, somehow.

He turned away, smelling ashes and smoke-streaked sky. Hearing the sea.

He walked down the corridor, towards the polished Imperial troops, who had, for some reason, stopped firing, looking at him, seeing him for the first time.

In one hand, he held a flame. In the other, he held a fuse. Together, they meant death.

His coat fell open, and they backed away, pressed between a solid wall and a stone-cold boy.

“This is your fault,” he said, his first words in nearly three years. No one understood him. He took savage pleasure in their fear as it roiled, coiled around him, tendrils of smoke growing, guttering, growing, unquenchable.

His hands were just a breath apart when he felt heat scorch down his arm, followed by another across his thigh, and he fell, stunned, red lights flying over his head, betrayed.

_Force, Jeron_ , his long-dead father said, _This has to stop._

He closed his eyes. The fire in his hand went out.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he was warm.

“Hello,” said the woman at his side.

He jacknifed away, crashing, somehow, a great distance to the ground.

Momentarily stunned, he scrabbled back to his feet, leg and arm throbbing.

The woman looked evenly at him, grey eyes clear, sharp.

“We’ve been looking for you a long time,” she said, “You meant a great deal to a good friend of mine.”

Cassian pressed himself against a cold wall, eyes darting up, down, across the massive, empty room.

Memory stirred.

He glanced behind him, realizing it was a door and not a wall, though there was no little girl here to insult him today.

“Your friend,” he said hoarsely, Basic jumbled, sharp, “His name?”

The woman regarded him emotionlessly, none of the aching sadness Cassian sensed showing on her tired face.

“Joreth,” she said, “His name was Joreth.”

His legs wobbled, and he sat, hard, on the frigid ferrocrete floor.

“He died for me,” he said.

“He did.”

He looked up at the woman, who remained seated by his empty bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“As am I,” the woman replied.

He swallowed.

“Age means nothing on Fest,” the woman said, “There is a place for you here, if you would have it.”

He didn’t know what good could come of his life but the destruction of the Empire.

The woman seemed to understand this.

“Come,” she said, gliding out from beside his bed on an aging repulsorchair, “I’d like you to meet my daughter. I have the feeling you two will become friends.”

Cassian stood stiffly, blocking the door.

“Who are you?” he demanded, “Why are you doing this?”

“My name is Travia,” the woman replied, “And I’m doing this because Joreth meant a great deal to me as well.” She smiled sadly at him. “That’s a good place to start, isn’t it?”

Cassian dipped his head.

Silently, he stepped aside.


	3. Ten, Eleven, Twelve

Contrary to Travia’s belief, he and Tantim did not become friends.

They circled each other warily, much older, much wiser for the intervening years.

To him, she was a girl, raised in the lap of luxury with a mother if not a father. She might have been able to draw a blaster faster than he could, but he knew how to survive on his own, without comms, without anyone else to care about him. She was a beloved child of the resistance, loved and revered as fiercely as her mother. She was a light, burning, unapologetically.

To her, he was a boy, proud and defiant, fiercely opposed to the thought of camaraderie, of companionship. He trusted no one, and no one trusted him, the slight boy with the wide, innocent eyes who’d walked down a hall filled with stormtroopers, explosives strapped to his chest. He was a wild, untamable thing.

She told her mother this, often and out loud, in front of the men who had protected but never coddled. And her mother would sigh, wearily, and offer no explanation at all.

More often than not, he would slink out of the underground base and walk the streets after dark, pacing restlessly, searching for something to destroy. She found him one night at the secret landing pad no one knew that they knew about, the one where unmarked ships used to land and disgorge crates and crates of weapons.

He sat in the snow, wrapped in an old, threadbare coat that ended inches above his wrists.

She stood behind him and thought she could kill him now if she wanted to.

Without turning, he said, “What do you want?”

Her hand was still on her blaster.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

He did not respond, and she shifted impatiently. It was several long minutes before he spoke again.

“I’m thinking,” he said.

There was something in his voice that she hadn’t heard before, something that she struggled to identify. When, finally, it occurred to her, she dropped her hand in surprise.

Honesty.

“About what?” she asked, before she could help herself.

He shook his head, suddenly looking very small.

She looked away, out across the deactivated nav lights.

“This is how you got here, isn’t it,” she said, “On a ’ship.”

“Yeah,” he replied, very quietly.

“You should come back inside,” she said, “That coat’s a farking piece of bantha poodoo.”

He bristled a little. She could tell by the way his shoulders drew up tighter around his ears.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You know,” she said, finding herself, for some reason, stepping closer, “I always thought you’d be a better liar.”

He looked up, startled, as she sat next to him, a careful distance away.

She pretended not to see the tears.

He drew his knees to his chest. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an old pair of gloves, tossing them into his face.

“Even though you grew up in the streets,” she said, “I thought you’d’ve at least learned how to dress yourself.”

He looked at her curiously, eyes narrowed, guarded as he slowly pulled on her gloves.

“I apologize,” he said after a beat, very drily.

She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips.

* * *

She knew that Travia had him running sabotage missions.

Travia, not her mother.

She’d decided on this distinction several months after her eleventh birthday. It made things easier.

Travia had accepted it with a stoicism appropriate to her position as Commander-in-Chief of the Fest Resistance.

And then, of course, they’d intercepted an Imperial transmission detailing an attack on Mantooine.

“I don’t understand you!” she heard Cassian shouting as she approached Travia’s office. Instinct made her pause, press herself back against the shadows.

“You’re all on the same farking side!” Cassian continued, more animated than she’d ever heard him, “Why does it matter if they invaded you? That was farking _years_ ago, and you’ve invaded them, too! _Fark_ , you can’t just let this happen!”

“Cassian--” Travia began evenly, but Tantim knew her voice well enough to detect an undercurrent of weariness.

“Even strategically, it’s a _farking shavit_ idea. Mantooine’s less than an hour’s hyperspace jump away. How does it make any sense to let the Empire set up a base _in the next system over!?_ ”

“Cassian, it’s not that simple--”

“--If you do this,” Cassian snarled, and she could picture him, brow furrowed, jaw rigid, “If you let this happen, you’re no better than the Empire.”

She was too stunned to move, even though his footsteps approached, light and heavy at once. He turned straight into her just outside Travia’s door, and he swore violently, hand falling to the blaster he had just started carrying at his side, slung low on his thigh like one of the older men, the gray, grizzled ones. Then, he saw who she was and what she’d been doing, and he brushed past her, expression shuttered.

“Cassian!” she called after him, but he did not stop.

* * *

 

He was in her quarters late that night when she returned, and her bunkmate pushed past her just as she came through the door.

“I need you to come with me,” he said.

“Where?” she demanded.

“You heard us today,” he said, arms folded. She stepped closer. He was almost a year older than she was, just past his twelfth birthday, but she was still taller.

“What?” she snorted, “You’re going to Mantooine?”

He met her eye and said nothing.

“They’re all right,” she muttered, also crossing her arms, “You’re insane.”

“Why?” he snapped, “Because I want to do the right thing?”

She said nothing.

“You think it would be better to have the Empire, our mutual enemy, take a planet full of innocent--”

“--oh, don’t start with that,” she spat, “They’ve been at war longer than we have. There’s no such thing as innocence anymore.”

He squinted at her.

“There’s something else you two aren’t telling me,” he said, irritatingly perceptive.

“Fark off,” she snarled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your father was from Mantooine, wasn’t he? Travia mentioned it a while ago.”

“If you already know, why are you asking?”

“But he lived here, on Fest. He joined the resistance.”

She said nothing.

“But he wasn’t killed by the Imperials, was he. He was killed when Mantooine invaded.” His gaze was dark, piercing. “That’s why you don’t want to help Mantooine.”

“Get out,” she said.

He didn’t move.

“If you father was from Mantooine, and he came and fought for Fest, what makes you think that there won’t be just like that? Just like him.”

“Leave,” she said.

He gave her one last, measured look.

“I’ll be gone at first light,” he said.

She heard the door slide shut behind him and did not turn.

She didn’t sleep that night. One question burned in her mind.

Why? Why had he asked her?

She found him in the hangar as dawn streaked the horizon. She did not know when he had learned to pilot a ’ship. For some reason, she was not surprised. He, too, was unsurprised when she climbed into the cockpit next to him and pulled the hatch shut.

He said nothing.

She said nothing.

When he fired up the engines and leapt into the air, to the squawking protests of the ATC officer on their comms, he grinned at her, bright and unrestrained.

She laughed.

* * *

They were nearly shot down over Mantooine, which was also unsurprising.

As it was, they were forced to the ground under close cover and snatched roughly from the cockpit, hands bound, blasters seized. Their age hardly gave the rough, bearded men pause.

Cassian endured this with a patience that spoke, somehow, of experience. She held her head high and demanded to speak to Loom Carplin.

They laughed at her, and then she told them who she was.

Their amusement turned hungry, calculating, and defiantly, Cassian stepped in front of her, swimming in her thick coat, and swore there would be _farking hell_ to pay if she was touched.

It took a moment for the men to realize they were being threatened by a _boy_ , and then the amusement returned, carefully, and then they relented,

Cassian glanced at her from under the thick fringe of his hair as he kept his head down, exuding, as had always been the case, an innocuous innocence that made her wonder if his time wasn’t being wasted as a saboteur.

Mantooine, unlike Fest, had not been occupied by the Empire. As yet.

She and Cassian were brought to a large, dimly-lit lean-to built against the side of a craggy overhang. A large mandala tree grew by the entrance, and she found herself transfixed by its delicate pink blossoms, its fragile green leaves, its strong, twisted trunk, reaching deep into the earth. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen a land without snow.

Cassian’s indifference told her that he had.

Unceremoniously, they were pushed inside, blinking rapidly in the sudden darkness.

“Well,” came a deep, dry voice, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Cassian stepped in front of her again, peering into the darkness, hands working furiously at his binders. She pushed him away and stepped forward.

“Loom Carplin,” she said loudly, “We’ve intercepted communications between Imperial garrisons that their forces in the Atrivis Sector are planning an imminent attack on Mantooine.”

“So I’ve heard,” Loom Carplin said, towering into view.

Cassian froze.

“Joreth?” the word tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. Dead, he was dead.

Loom turned to him, flaming beard grown wild down his chest.

“Who are you?” he demanded, blue eyes startlingly bright in his pale face, “Has Travia stooped this low? Sending children to do her dirty work, I see.”

Cassian swallowed.

“We’re here of our own accord,” he said boldly.

Loom looked at him sharply.

“And I repeat--” he rumbled, “Who are you?”

“I am Cassian Andor, and this is--”

Loom waved a massive hand.

“I know who she is,” he said. His thick brows drew together as he squinted down at Cassian. “What is a boy from Scarif doing on Fest?”

Cassian flinched but drew himself up, head held high.

“I’m fighting the Empire,” he said.

“Oh, I’ll bet you are,” Loom snorted, “Farking Travia. Once she’s got her claws in you, you’ll never get away.”

“It was my _choice_ ,” Cassian retorted, “Just as it was our choice to come to you.”

“How do I know Travia didn’t send you here to ‘warn’ me, hm?” Loom replied, “That would be just like her.”

Cassian sensed Tantim draw a sharp breath behind him, so he spoke quickly.

“I can prove it,” he said, “I can tell you something that Travia would never have told anyone. Something she wouldn’t ever have told anyone she trusted. Something that only three people know.”

Loom drew back, eyebrows raised.

“And what might that be?”

Cassian looked quickly over his shoulder at Tantim, who had dull resignation written on her face, and knew he was right. He turned back to Loom.

“The first person I met on Fest,” he said, “Was a man named Joreth. He was Travia’s second-in-command until he died.” Cassian drew a steadying breath. “He was also her husband.” He looked Loom full in the face. “And your brother.”

Silence.

“Aye, _that_ ,” Loom said drily, familiar and alien at once, “Is a secret Travia will take to her grave.”

He looked appraisingly down at Cassian again, expression shifting, smoothing.

“You knew my brother, then?” he said roughly.

“He saved my life,” Cassian said quietly. Honestly.

Loom eyed him, arms crossed across his broad chest.

“Now,” he said slowly, “How imminent is this attack?”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Tantim said, curled up beside him on the hard-packed dirt floor, back pressed to his back, “I should have told you.”

Cassian shifted behind her.

“Why?” he asked, voice muffled, “There’s no reason you should have.”

Tantim bit her lip, staring out into the darkness.

“When you said Travia didn’t trust you--” she faltered, began again, “It’s not true. She does trust you. Because of my father. I just--” she stopped again, pushing past the awkwardness of genuine sentiment, “I just didn’t want you to think the same about me.”

Cassian was still, but she could tell by his breathing, shallow and irregular, that he was still awake.

“You--” he paused here, unfamiliar, too, with the expression of emotion, “You trust me?”

“Yeah,” she said without thinking, “Of course I do.”


	4. Twelve, Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and Travia speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short update.
> 
> References [Beginnings, Part I](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8875372/chapters/20953964).

The holocall between Loom Carplin and Travia Chan would be marked in Cassian’s mind as the singularly most uncomfortable situation in which he had ever found himself.

He stood before the hololens at Loom’s side and tried not to look like a traitor.

“Loom,” Travia, shimmering blue, said. Cassian knew by the terseness of her speech that she had a tight grip on her temper.

“Travia,” Loom replied, sounding much the same.

They glared at each other. Cassian resisted the urge to place his face in his hands.

“You have my daughter,” Travia said, and for some reason, that cut deeply.

“I do not _have_ your daughter,” Loom snapped, “She came to me. Your boy as well, though stars know what you’re doing having him make bombing runs. He’s far too sharp for that.”

Cassian flushed in embarrassment, head still slightly foggy from his overindulgence in Mantooine rum the night before.

Travia said nothing, though Cassian felt the weight of her gaze even across the parsecs.

“I hear the Empire has plans for Mantooine,” Loom continued, when it became clear Travia would not speak, “We would do well to join forces. Cassian tells me you are near to breaking their hold on Fest.”

 _Traitor_ , Travia’s gaze seemed to cry.

He forced himself to meet her disappointment evenly.

 _Try to understand_ , he begged.

“If that truly is the case,” Travia said neutrally, “What leads you to believe that we are in need of your… _assistance?_ ”

Loom stiffened beside him, and Cassian gritted his teeth together, vowing to let them talk, have them come to an agreement of their own accord.

“Look, Travia,” Loom growled, “We’re fighting the same people here. We both have people we want to protect. Sometimes--” he paused significantly, “--they might be the same people.”

Somehow, Cassian knew that that had been the wrong thing to say.

“You might have considered that before you sent your own men after our outpost in the Lionidan Fields,” Travia replied sharply.

“You think I wanted him dead?” Loom’s voice rose. Cassian closed his eyes. “He was my _brother!_ ”

“And a _father_ ,” Travia retorted, “If you--”

“--You have a nasty little habit of dragging your family into this farking mess,” Loom snarled, “First, your father, then Joreth, and now your _daughter_ \--”

“-- _Don’t you dare talk to me about family!_ ”

Cassian jerked his head up, startled.

“Ach,” Loom sneered, “Have I failed your standards on that as well?”

“Now, that would be difficult,” Travia replied, “Considering they’ve always been set rather low in your case.”

 _This is getting ridiculous_ , Cassian thought.

He cleared his throat pointedly, just as Loom opened his mouth.

They all turned to look at him, Tantim included.

“I think,” he said carefully, “That there is a time for this conversation. But,” he paused significantly, “It’s definitely not now.”

After a long, tense moment of disbelieving silence, Loom burst out laughing, a loud, echoing thing that painfully reminded them all of his brother.

“Where did you find this boy?” Loom rumbled, “I can see why you keep him around.”

“Yes,” Travia said, unreadable, “So can I.”

* * *

When he was thirteen, an angry man cornered him a dark alley and told him the rebellion needed his help.

Davits Draven was not to be trusted, he decided that day, but not because the former Republic officer was a bad man. They were just similar in too many ways, the ways that had kept them alive.

“Travia,” Cassian said one night in her office, “What do you think of the rebellion?”

Travia didn’t look up from her datapad, in the throes of composing a long message to Loom about supply line shortages. It had been six months since their successful defense against the Empire, and still, each week remained a struggle for survival.

“What rebellion?” she muttered absently.

“You know,” Cassian said, looking sharply at her, not fooled for a second, “The one that got Senator Mothma a price on her head.”

“That’s not a rebellion,” Travia replied.

“What makes you say that?”

At this, Travia paused, looking up at the boy before her. Cassian maintained eye contact, unwavering.

“Why are you so curious about them all of a sudden?” she asked instead.

“They have resources,” he said.

“Yes, and they’ve _certainly_ done a lot with them,” Travia snorted, returning to her message.

“But could you really expect anything else?” Cassian pressed, “They’re just a bunch of senators and retired generals. All they know how to do is talk. They have no military, but--”

Travia set her datapad down with a loud _clack_.

“--What are you trying to say?” she said sharply, “That we should join forces with this rebellion? That would be the same as me telling you to face down a dozen stormtroopers with a hydrospanner. We’re Separatists, Cassian. We fought against the Republic in the Clone wars. The rebellion fights to return the Republic. I can hardly see the two of us agreeing to anything.”

Cassian scowled.

“I’m not saying we join an open resistance to the Empire,” he said, adding in a rebellious undertone, “Though that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing.” He continued, ignoring Travia’s glare. “I’m just saying they could help. They have resources in the Core we need, _badly_ , and we’ve fought the Empire and won, at least for now. We both have something the other could use.”

“You’ve spoken to someone, haven’t you,” Travia said flatly, “Someone from the--” she said the word distastefully, “rebellion.”

Cassian thought about denying it, knew that he could keep it from Travia if he wanted. But something, some _sense_ told him to speak the truth.

“I have,” he said unapologetically.

“Who?”

“A man,” Cassian replied.

“ _Who?_ ”

Cassian drew himself up straighter.

“He said his name was Draven.”

The temperature in the room plunged a few degrees.

“You know him,” Cassian said.

“Of all people,” Travia said flatly.

Cassian waited, watching the thoughts churn.

“When was this?” she asked.

“Last week.”

Travia sucked in a breath.

“ _Cassian_ \--”

“--I didn’t tell you because I knew how you’d react. Besides,” he shrugged, “I told him nothing.”

Travia’s eyes flashed.

“That man is _dangerous_ ,” she spat, “That he should return--” She stopped abruptly.

“Knew him well, then,” Cassian amended.

Travia exhaled sharply.

“Was it Draven that told you all this?” she snapped.

“No,” Cassian replied, “He just hit me in the face and said he could use me in the rebellion. It wasn’t that hard to figure out the rest.”

“ _Cassian_.”

This time, his name was filled with resignation.

Cassian said nothing, waiting.

Travia turned and stared distantly out the window, the dim yellow light highlighting the thick streaks of grey in her hair. He felt more determined than apologetic.

“You don’t know the Republic like I do,” Travia said at length.

“You’re not from Scarif,” he returned, “If anyone should hate the Republic, it’s me. Where were they?” he said heatedly, “Too busy off fighting their war to care about us. Look,” he said, stepping closer, “I don’t want to fight for the Republic. But we need Core access or we won’t last the winter. If that means fighting _with_ the Republic to overthrow the Empire, don’t you think that’s worth it?”

Travia picked up her datapad again.

“You’re far too clever for your age,” she said.

“Age means nothing on Fest,” Cassian replied automatically.


	5. Fourteen, Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian learns about a particular cousin of his. And meets Bail Organa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Chapter 4 of _Sacrifice_.
> 
> Thanks, all, for your patience with this bit. I’m now legitimately juggling WIPs--wonderful.

Surprisingly, Travia was the one who told him about Shara Bey.

“Here,” she said after an early-morning briefing session, passing him a small, wrinkled piece of flimsi.

He picked it up off the conference table.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“There’s a family not far from here,” Travia said, maneuvering herself around the table towards the door. Cassian rose to follow. “They’re from Scarif.”

He stopped in his tracks.

“They arrived on Fest many years before the Empire,” Travia continued, pausing and turning when she realized he wasn’t following.

“There are people from Scarif…” he said dumbly, “Here?”

He looked down at the piece of flimsi. An address was stamped across it in Travia’s even, slanted hand.

“I thought you might be curious,” Travia said, turning away again.

She left the room.

Cassian stared at the address in his hand.

* * *

The rejection stung all the more for the previous hope.

But he would remember Shara Bey.

He would remember how she’d looked at him, so sad, so surprised.

He would remember his mother.

* * *

When he was fifteen, he met Bail Organa.

As the year wore on and negotiations stalled and sputtered, stalled and sputtered, he often wondered at the man, at his large, calm presence, inscrutable one moment and bursting with warmth the next.

“What’re you thinking about?” Tantim asked one night, sprawled on the bunk above his.

He frowned.

“Nothing.”

“Stop it. I can hear you frowning."

“You can’t _hear_ it when someone frowns,” he shot back, irritated because she was, as usual, correct.

“Wanna bet?” she said.

He could hear her smiling, so he shut his mouth and rolled over, curling up and facing the wall.

“How’re things going with that treaty?” Tantim asked, “Travia’s not really talking to anyone about it.”

“Surprise,” Cassian muttered.

Tantim sighed, wriggling around and pressing her face into the gap between the bed and the wall, looking down at him in the darkness.

“What do you think of that Senator guy? Senator Organa?”

“Not much,” Cassian said levelly, looking neutrally up at her, shooting for nonchalance and--just barely--achieving it, “Why?”

“I see him looking at you sometimes, like he knows you or something.”

Cassian snorted.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, “How would the senator know me?”

“I don’t know,” Tantim said in that irritated voice that meant she thought he was missing the point entirely, “Wasn’t your dad from Alderaan?”

“My step-father, yeah,” Cassian replied, turning away from her to face the wall.

“Do you think they might have known each other?”

 _Probably_ , Cassian thought.

“No,” he said.

“Really?” Tantim asked, and he _knew_ she was trying to pull something out of him.

“Really,” he said flatly, curling up on his side.

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask, though, would it?”

“ _Tantim_ ,” he sighed, flopping over onto his back again to look up at her, “We’re in the middle of negotiating one of the most important treaties in the history of the galaxy. I don’t think it would be very appropriate to start asking him personal questions.”

“Right,” Tantim snorted, “Because being _appropriate_ is so important to you, isn’t it?”

He glared up at her, picturing her dark hair falling across her face, her dark eyes crinkling in amused exasperation. He liked that look.

“It’s easier if everyone just does what they’re supposed to do,” he sighed.

“Cassian, you’ve aligned us with the _Rebellion_. I think you might want to reconsider your opinions.”

He yawned and turned away from her again, facing the wall once more.

“Even if they did know each other,” he said, half to himself, “It doesn’t change anything.”

“But you’d want to know,” Tantim said just as quietly, “I know you’d want to know.”

He didn’t respond to that, but he still felt her eyes on him, curiously evaluating.

“Not everyone’s going to be like that cousin, you know,” she said suddenly, cutting him to the heart, “Especially not the senator. The Empire can’t scare him like that.”

“You seem to know him very well,” Cassian said roughly, pressing his face into his thin pillow.

“That’s just the sense I get from him,” Tantim replied.

“You should come join in with the negotiations, then, since you can _sense_ his intentions,” Cassian ground out.

“So they’re not going well, then,” Tantim said.

“I really don’t want to think about it,” he replied honestly, voice muffled, “I’m going to be an old man before he and Travia agree to anything.”

“What about that other senator? Mothma?”

“She’s not able to--” he hesitated, “-- _intervene_ very often,” Cassian replied, “Since she’s so busy opposing Senator Organa in the Imperial Senate.”

“Sounds complicated,” Tantim said.

“I hate politics,” he grunted.

“It’s better than making bomb runs, though.”

Cassian closed his eyes.

“No one’s as good as you were,” Tantim continued, “All the guys are too big, so--”

“--Please tell me you’re not the one they’re sending out with the charges,” he said sharply, suddenly awake.

“Of course it’s me,” Tantim huffed drily, “Who else would it be? I’m still small enough to fit under a crawler, and I’m just as fast as you are. Were.”

“Tantim--” he choked, rolling onto his back to face her again, eyes gritty with weariness.

“What?” she asked, amused, “A few months away from us, and you’ve already gone soft. I’m disappointed.”

He stared at her, eyes straining, just making out the curve of her lips in the dim glow from under the door. Something unfamiliar welled in him.

“Just--” he stumbled over his words again, “Just be careful, okay?”

“Sir, yes sir,” she snorted, turning over on her mattress and away from him.

He was left looking after the deeper shadow she had left behind.

He wondered.

* * *

He stood stiffly beside Senator Organa in the ‘lift the next morning.

He felt the man’s eyes on him, quiet, curious as they rode up to Travia’s office.

“Late start today?” the senator asked.

Startled, Cassian looked up at him.

“Sorry?”

The senator made a small motion towards his neck, face creased with an unfamiliar, warm amusement. Cassian touched a hand to his collar and found it turned inside-out. He straightened it quickly.

“Thank you,” he said stiffly.

The ‘lift shuddered to a halt.

“After you, please, Senator,” Cassian said politely.

Senator Organa looked down at him, warmth bleeding into even consideration. He did not move.

“Call me Bail,” he said, “It’s time we stopped standing on ceremony.”

Cassian eyed him warily, struggling to sniff out a motive and finding instead only a vague sense of uneasy familiarity. The ‘lift doors started to close. Instinctively, he shot out a hand and slammed them back open. The sound was sharp, jarring.

“Thank you,” he paused, “Senator. But I don’t think that would be appropriate, given the circumstances.”

There was a considerable amount of truth behind his words. Travia spat the senator’s name like a curse, clipped and restrained, a chained, straining acklay. It would hardly do for him to be on a first-name basis with the source of all her considerable ire.

Even so, Cassian tried to ignore the brief flash of hurt he thought he saw flare behind the senator’s eyes.

“Of course,” Senator Organa said courteously, with a slight inclination of his head, “Forgive me.”

He gave Cassian another even, measured look, inscrutable again, then stepped out of the lift with a murmured thanks. Cassian allowed himself just a moment of hesitation, then followed, head held high, doing, as always, what he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/158496034821/began-chapter-5-fourteen-fifteen).


	6. Sixteen, Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A relationship blossoms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References the _Beginnings_ miniseries and the first half of Chapter 22 from _A Little Bit of Everything_.  
>  A companion piece to [Chapter 12](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10261250/chapters/23177439) of _Shore Leave_.

“Cassian,” Tantim said, “Travia wants to know if we’re sleeping together.”

Cassian spat out a mouthful of dehydrated Yot beans.

“ _What?_ ” he blurted.

Tantim pushed his glass into his hand with a look of mild reproach.

“That was gross,” she said.

Cassian took a large gulp of water, darting glances over his shoulder to see if anyone had overheard.

“She--” he choked, “She _what?_ ”

“Yeah, that was kind of my reaction too,” Tantim replied, absently twirling a finger in a thick lock of hair--the only tell of hers he had ever been able to identify, “But without the dramatic bean-spitting.”

“Why was she asking?” Cassian replied, aghast, “What did you _say?_ ”

Tantim held up two fingers.

“I don’t know,” she said, lazily ticking off the pointer, “And yes.” She left her middle finger waggling in his face.

“ _Yes!?_ ” Cassian hissed, dropping his fork, “Why--”

“Because we _are_ ,” Tantim said, rolling her eyes, “Just not in the way that she thinks we are.”

“Did you _explain_ this to her?” Cassian exclaimed, half-standing.

“Relax,” Tantim replied, “I think she got the message.”

“You _think!?_ ” Cassian sat with a thump, groaning quietly, “Why do you two have to keep doing this?”

“Doing what?” Tantim asked innocently, one slender brow arched.

“Fighting,” Cassian replied, “So passive-aggressively.”

“What, you’d prefer if we went at it with quarterstaffs and truncheons?” Tantim snorted, “I don’t think that’d be a fair fight.”

“You’re doing this just to fark with me, aren’t you?” he said flatly, “You sadistic nexu.”

Tantim shrugged, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Would you prefer it if I transferred to the women’s barracks?” she asked. At his wary look, she added, “No, I’m being serious. If you think people are going to talk about it, I don’t want it to mess with whatever you’re helping Travia with.”

“No,” he said before he could think about why, “I’m pretty sure it won’t come to that.”

“Yeah,” Tantim agreed after a long moment, “I guess.”

* * *

On the night of his sixteenth birthday, Tantim sat him down on his bunk and told him to wait and not fall asleep. Having averaged three hours of sleep each night the preceding week in the process of frenetically finalizing the treaty with Senator Organa and his Force-damned rebellion, he irritably made no guarantees and watched her disappear down the corridor.

He was asleep when she returned, slumped against the bedpost, and she sighed gustily, ramming something hard against his knee.

He woke with a yelp, smacking his head on the bottom of her bunk and fumbling with his blaster.

“Calm down, you farking gundark,” Tantim said, “It’s just me.”

“That _hurt_ ,” he said accusingly, holstering his blaster and rubbing his knee.

“Serves you right,” she replied archly, setting down her burden.

He looked down at it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Really,” Tantim said flatly.

He looked up at her in confusion.

“You don’t recognize this?” she demanded.

“It’s a very strangely-shaped box,” he replied, defensive.

“Oh, I forgot,” Tantim said, “You grew up in the Outer Rim.” She paused dramatically. “Oh wait. So did I.”

“Well, _sorry_ ,” he muttered.

Tantim sighed again and crouched, undoing the clasps on the strangely-shaped, curvy box and pulling the lid open on silent hinges.

Cassian stared.

“That’s a guitar,” he said.

“Very good,” Tantim said drily, pulling the instrument from its velvet-lined case.

“Why do you have a guitar?” he asked, still staring.

“It was my father’s,” Tantim replied, “He taught me how to play when I was little.”

“Ah,” he said.

She sat next to him on his bed, legs and shoulders brushing, the neck of the guitar jutting into his lap.

“Why are you showing me this?” Cassian asked, perplexed, “Are you going to sing me a song? Because I’ve heard you sing in the ‘fresher before, and I don’t think I’d like to hear anything like that again.”

Tantim looked up from her tuning.

“You see,” she said flatly, “It’s things like that that make people ask if we’re sleeping together.”

Cassian blinked blearily, pawing at his tired eyes.

“Okay,” he said, wearily accepting confusion.

“This is your birthday gift,” Tantim said.

“I don’t know how to play guitar,” Cassian replied, slumping back onto the bed, eyes closed.

“I’m not _giving_ it to you, you farking idiot,” Tantim snapped, kicking him in the shin, “Travia’d find some way to climb into my bunk to murder me in my sleep. I’m teaching you how to play it.”

Cassian’s eyes snapped open. He sat up and hit his head on her bunk again.

“You _what?_ ” he asked, hand pressed to his forehead.

“I’m teaching you how to play this thing,” Tantim replied, avoiding his gaze. “ _I’ve_ heard you sing in the ‘fresher, and I think it’d make a lot more sense for you to be playing this thing than me.”

When Cassian looked at her, he saw that her cheeks were flushed.

“Oh,” he said, mind going blank. He felt his face heating. “Okay.” He transferred his gaze quickly to his boots. “Thanks?” he added.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Tantim said loudly, shoving the guitar into his lap.

He almost dropped it in surprise, but Tantim reached out quickly, pressing the large, rounded body to his chest, hand splayed against his back to keep him upright.

He realized that this brought them into very close proximity.

He also realized that her mouth was inches from his  and that it was open, slightly parted. Her teeth were very white.

And then Tantim sat back, placed both hands on his shoulders, and swiveled him around so they were facing each other.

“So,” she said quickly, finger twining in her hair. “Six strings, six notes, lots of different tunings, but we don’t have to worry about that now. Let’s just start with easy chords.”

He stared at her as if seeing someone entirely new.

“What?” she snapped, “Close your mouth. You look like an idiot.”

He snapped his jaw closed with a painful click of teeth.

She reached out and took his left hand, flipping it over, palm-up so she could poke the ends of his fingers. She smiled sunnily.

“Great,” she said, “No calluses. This is going to hurt.”

“It’s okay,” he said, dazed, “I don’t mind.”

* * *

By the time he turned seventeen, they were still sleeping together, just probably not in the way Travia thought.

The finalization of the Treaty of Generis coincided with the turning of the standard year, and Cassian found himself alone at the rebellion headquarters on Dantooine as the sole representative from the Atrivis Resistance Group. He peered out the viewport as the transport landed smoothly in a broad, grassy clearing, a squat, grey compound looming in the distance. Travia’s words sounded in his mind.

_I trust you with her._

He and Tantim had said nothing, and yet Travia had, perhaps with a mother’s instinct, _known_.

Tantim, though grown tall and lean, still headed the bombing runs on the Imperial remnant locked away deep in the frozen northern reaches of the planet, downing cargo ships, slowly tightening the noose around their previous captors. Somehow, though, in the past year, their relationship had shifted, had slowly, unexpectedly moved beyond squabbling brother and sister to some unfamiliar--though not unwanted--territory. They remained together in their shared quarters, wordlessly waiting up for the other, wordlessly curling up together most nights, wordlessly sleeping beneath shared covers.

Cassian didn’t want to ask. He didn’t know what to ask.

He sensed Tantim felt the same.

His days were split between acting as a personal advisor to Travia Chan and running damage control for relations between Fest and Mantooine forces, which were in no way aided by Loom Carplin’s big but well-meaning mouth. This left precious little time for conversation--or anything else.

The rebel base was in throes of the new year’s revelry by the time he engineered an escape from the small, cluttered celebration marking the completion of the treaty. He nodded briefly at Senator Organa as he slipped away, wandering through the empty halls and finding himself at an empty bar, whiling away the time until departure.

He thought about Tantim again. About her dark hair and her dark eyes, so often narrowed in exasperated amusement. They managed, somehow. They didn’t talk. They laughed. They sang. On those rare nights, she would pull out her father’s guitar and he would sing quiet songs from Scarif, the words seared into his soul. She would listen, and her guitar would sing along.

Then, they would sleep, clutching each other close.

 _I’ll come back_ , he’d said, _Of course I’ll come back._

He hadn’t left Fest in nearly eleven years, but he found himself strangely reluctant to remain away for long. Fest had become something more, something vaguely important in his life. And so it was that he gladly accepted Mon Mothma’s offer for the command of the Fest battalion. He knew those men and women. He knew them well.

When he returned to Fest, Tantim was waiting without waiting. She stepped out of the shadows just outside their closet of a comm center and smiled so brightly at him he stopped dead in his tracks.

She circled him, almost hungrily.

“Welcome home,” she said, and he knew he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's (very brief) notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/159018208321/began-chapter-6-sixteen-seventeen).


	7. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At eighteen, he becomes a father.

He is a father.

It is terrifying.

He holds his son in his arms, a small thing, and wonders. Around them, the walls tremble violently, the ceiling moans, the ground shudders. It is a sign, surely. His son, born into war, will be a strong man. A great man.

“Jeron,” he says to Tantim because of course they hadn’t had the audacity to discuss this beforehand--she is hardly more than a girl, and this is war, “His name is Jeron.”

“Why?” she whispers into his shoulder.

He swallows.

“Jeron,” he says, quietly, over the plasma shells carpeting the ground above, “Means ‘holy.’”

She looks up at him.

“Holy.”

“In Scryllic,” he continues, looking into the pink, wrinkled face in his arms, “It also means ‘saved.’”

* * *

The war on Fest is not going well. Elsewhere, their little rebellion struggles, guttering against the consuming darkness of the Empire.

No one needs to tell him. No one needs him to tell them. The faces all around are grim, hollow, fierce.

The fighters from Corellia are not enough. The cargo from Alderaan rarely breaks through the blockade. Word is, the CEC is in the process of designing a new ‘ship--a blockade runner--specifically for this purpose.

Cassian has hope this will help.

He knows that the Empire is after Fest for its phrik, reluctant to relinquish its hold on the precious, nearly indestructible supermetal. What he doesn’t understand is--why now? Why hadn’t they reopened the mines when they’d had the planet firmly in their grasp, when he’d been just a boy, tearing through the streets, explosives strapped across his chest?

He mentions this to Travia, who eyes him warily now with the ghost of fondness, with the hard edge of wary caution.

“They’re planning something,” he says, cradling Jeron in his arms late one night so Tantim can sleep. Their son is a fussy, delicate boy, as if he knows there is something wrong with his world, that the sky should be some color other than grey, that warmth should come from the sun, not a rusted heating unit running on stringently-rationed fuel.

Travia watches him.

“They always are,” she replies.

Cassian stifles a sigh. His days as personal advisor to Travia Chan had ended the moment he and Tantim had entered her office together, heads held high, celebration in their hearts, fear in their souls. Travia has always kept her own counsel, and has never truly needed--only preferred--him by her side.

She neither needs nor wants him now.

“Travia--” he tries again. Jeron waves a fist.

“--if it’s of such concern to you, bring it up with the High Council,” she says, dismissing him, “We have enough to worry about.”

When he looks at her, her eyes are hard, fixed with unreadable emotion on the child in his arms.

“Understood,” he replies tersely, turning jerkily and exiting into the hall.

“Ssshh,” he whispers to his son, who whimpers, “Ssshhh, everything is alright.”

The boy wails, as if he knows the truth.

* * *

Into this darkness comes an unexpected light.

Shara Bey, no longer the frightened, apologetic girl of his memory, stands before him, eyes shining with pride as he shakes her hand and welcomes her to the rebellion.

She becomes fast friends with Tantim, these two women thrust into positions of command.

Watching them together, he smiles.

* * *

As the commander of the Fest battalion, it is his duty to report regularly to the High Council of their pitiful rebellion--consisting, at this point, of three people. Or so he hears. The senator from Corellia has been markedly elusive, though perhaps he cannot be to blame. Corellia had been among the first of the Core Worlds to fall under Imperial martial law, and though the planetside resistance is a strong, healthy thing, it is difficult to establish secure trans-galactic transmissions with the Empire monitoring every hololine.

“They’ve increased the intensity of their orbital bombardment,” he says into the hololens evenly, hands clasped behind his back, “We’re estimating approximately seventy-five percent of surface structures have been destroyed.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the ghostly holo of Loom Carplin shake his head wearily. Mantooine, devoid of phrik, has fared better in recent months. Its people live above the ground, under the open sky, and breathe air warmed by the sea.

Cassian wonders if Jeron will ever see the sea.

 _He will_ , he promises fiercely.

“They must need the phrik badly,” he says, “It’s been months.”

“The question is why,” Senator Organa says gravely. He’s been grave, it seems, all his life.

Cassian concedes this point.

“We have the largest known deposits in the galaxy,” he says, “They must be building something big, to have come after us again for so long.”

“We’re looking into it,” Senator Mothma says.

“Look harder,” Cassian snaps.

No one asks him why because everyone knows now that it is only a matter of time before Fest falls, before the poisonous mines are torn open again to yield their deadly fruit to the Imperial harvesters.

“We need food,” he continues, “People are dying.”

 _Children,_ he thinks.

Senator Mothma looks at him with all the sadness of the galaxy drowning in her eyes.

“We’ll find a way, Cassian,” she says, “Have hope.”

 _Hope_ , he begins to wonder, _what is hope?_

* * *

He leads a ragtag group of men and women to the surface, armed to the teeth with desperation. Tantim is with him. He’d learned long ago to silence his protests.

“Here,” she’d said, curling into his side one night, skin on skin, “Right here.”

For the first time in years, he had explosives strapped to his belt, those very same spent-cartridge bombs he’d cobbled together as a feral child, desperate for survival.

Travia doesn’t know that they are going. She doesn’t know who won’t be coming back.

He recognizes the Imperial outpost when they settle into the darkness. He’d fled this place twelve years ago on the command of a dying man. Tantim brushes his shoulder as she comes to sand beside him.

The raid is sharp, tightly-executed, hunger spurring their thirst for death. He laughs at the blood on his hands, at its warmth on his face. They take all the supplies they can carry on their repulsorcarts, then he lays his charges, strikes the fuse on the smooth piece of phrik in his pocket, and they run.

When they return to their underground home, he unloads the rice, the potatoes, the frozen fish, and turns sharply on his heel down a deserted corridor, away from the weak exclamations of joyful surprise.

He sinks down against a wall and cries.

Tantim brings Jeron to him.

Cassian clings to the their son, and the blood on his hands smears across the boy’s face like a sacrifice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the shift in tense was a deliberate thing.
> 
> This chapter's notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/159469745766/began-chapter-7-eighteen).


	8. Nineteen, Part 1

Some nights, he sings them both to sleep.

Jeron cries and cries and cries until their voices are hoarse and raw, broken and questioning.

* * *

 

He continues leading the raids.

He cuts throats with a keening sort of desperation, sinking deep into throbbing flesh. 

There is a wariness now in the looks his men, his friends, give him, a respect verging on fear. 

He ignores them. He kills for his son, for hope.

* * *

 

Jeron cries and cries and cries, and he paces up and down the deserted corridor, frigid air sharpening the sound, which it rings and rings endlessly, thin and empty, hollow like their stomachs. He is too tired to sing tonight, too battle-weary. 

Half-dead, they edge along the threshold of death.

Cassian looks down at his son, at the thin face, the rounded cheeks, the stubborn chin.

He cannot bear the sight, so he looks away.

Jeron cries and cries.

Cassian clutches him to his chest, clinging to him, clinging to an impossible future.

* * *

 

Some nights, they sing together.

They all sing, drunk on grief, grinning fiercely through clouded eyes. Men and women, young and old, they crowd, on instinct, into the mess hall, clutching themselves together, fraying at the seams.

She brings her father’s guitar with her and hands it to him.

He cries, sometimes, when he sings.

He cries and cries.

Everyone does. They know there is no way out, and they are past denying inevitability. They just cling to the ones they have left, and face down the Empire with burning eyes of dying starlight.

He’s made his peace. Had, long ago, reconciled himself with death.

His greatest comfort was that he would leave nothing, no one, behind. When the Empire came for them, they all would die. There would be no survivors, no small children stowed away in cargo holds. They would all die together.

He smiles to himself sometimes, thinking this.

When he dies, he will be ready, and he will be content.

* * *

 

“What have we done?” Tantim whispers into his neck.

Between them, Jeron sleeps, quieted only by the presence of them both.

Cassian looks at them in the dark, imagining their faces. He puts an arm around her shoulders, carefully drawing her closer.

They stare at the deeper shadows where their faces are supposed to be.

“Rebelled,” he replies hoarsely, “We’ve rebelled.”

* * *

 

No one remembers the day he turns nineteen. There are no days underground. Just unending, flickering dusk.

Tantim realizes eventually, though, when Jeron takes one tentative step, falls away from him into her arms, and they all look at each other, recognizing the passage of time in the strained lines of their faces.

“Happy birthday,” she says.

“Happy birthday,” he replies.

Jeron laughs because they are smiling.

* * *

 

Jeron’s first word is “No.”

They laugh about it because it’s becoming clear their son has inherited a double measure of stubbornness.

Jeron’s second word is “Papá.”

Cassian teases Tantim endlessly about this. She punches him in the shoulder, hard enough to bruise, and they laugh and laugh.

“Te quiero mamá!” Jeron chirps one day, smiling with a mouthful of teeth.

Tantim drops her blaster cartridge. It clatters loudly to the frozen floor.

“ _ ¿Qué?” _ Cassian breathes, crouching before his son, “What did you say?”

Jeron looks up at him, brown eyes wide and hopeful.

“Te quiero papá,” he says, arms flung wide.

Cassian scoops him up desperately. 

“Well,” Tantim chokes out, stripped blaster in hand, “I beat you on that one.”

They laugh and laugh until they cry.

* * *

 

“Loom,” he says late one night, weeks or months later, “We need to evacuate.”

The blue holo of Loom Carplin flickers feebly.

“Finally talked some sense into her, have yeh?” the big man rumbles.

“No,” Cassian says flatly, “This is my idea, not hers.”

Loom looks at him then, thick brows heavy, impenetrable. 

“Ach, lad,” he says quietly.

“What?” Cassian demands, strained, “You think it makes any sense for us to stay here? We’ve done what we could. We all have, but the Empire’s going to get its phrik, and it’s going to build whatever farking superweapon it’s working on. We just can’t do anything more.”

Loom sighs, a weary, wounded sound.

“When?” he asks.

“As soon as you can,” Cassian replies firmly. He catches Loom’s eye. “I’ll handle Travia. You just get your blockade runners ready.”

“Right, then,” Loom says.

* * *

 

Travia says nothing when he tells her.

In her eyes, there might have been relief. There might have been shame. Resentment.

He can’t tell anymore.

* * *

 

Three days later, he gets shot in the back.

They are on a raid some fifty clicks away from their underground base, and the fuses on his makeshift charges short out before they blow.

Side-by-side, he and Tantim pause in their headlong escape, ‘troopers hot on their heels.

“Go,” she hisses, pushing him away and sprinting back towards the outpost in one desperate motion.

“ _ Tantim! _ ” he shouts, voice cracking, shattered.

He shoves the repulsorlift cart at the rest of the raiding party and tears off after her, sour fear closing his throat.

When they die, they will die together. 

He does not want to be a survivor anymore.

He tackles her to the ground, narrowly dodging a pointed elbow.

“Cassian!” she snarls, struggling away.

He yanks her back to the ground as blaster bolts shriek past.

“Leave it!” he demands, pushing her up ahead of him, “Leave it, let’s go!”

She fights him, viciously, with a sudden voracious anger.

“ _ Tantim! _ ” he shouts, pinning her arms to her sides, “Tantim,  _ please--” _

The blaster bolt catches him square between the shoulder blades, and she disappears in a wave of fire.

He doesn’t lose consciousness, just breath, as he crumples to the ground, Tantim screaming his name over and under and through the blistering hail of blaster bolts. He claws his way back to his feet, spurred by her voice, her desperation as she slings his arm around her narrow shoulders and hauls him away to their waiting speeders.

The moment they are back in the frigid, murky ‘lift, he collapses to his knees, taking her with him.

“Cassian,” she says, cupping his face with cold hands.

One of the men radios ahead for a med team.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, and he sags forward, leaning into her, onto her because he’s just so tired. So tired. 

She catches him, wraps her arms around him, clings to him like she’ll never let him go.

He knows she won’t.

Together. Always together, in life or death.

* * *

 

Two hours later, Imperial forces drop plasma charges down the ‘lift shaft, which had been left open in everyone’s frantic determination to rush him to medbay.

His world ends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/159957184636/began-chapter-8-nineteen).


	9. Nineteen, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month later, I present to you the final chapter and a general TW.

He is dead.

He is dead.

He cannot live.

Not like this.

He lies down on the burning earth beside them.

He does not cry. He knows he is not far behind.

The fire rages around him, their walls shattered, ice burning, spitting.

He closes his eyes.

Another detonation sounds, far away.

He wishes it was closer.

He imagines he hears Jeron’s laugh, the delight in his eyes at this new, dancing thing-- _fire._

Tantim laughs along with him, and they all smile.

Fire--warmth-- _home_.

But his son is small and still in his arms.

He breathes into Tantim’s hair, resting in their nearness, in the quiet comfort of presence.

Peace.

He is ready.

He is at peace.

Smoke struggles its way into his lungs. He breathes deeper, helping it along.

He is at peace.

Boots shatter his rest. Loom Carplin roars his name in the distance.

He curls tighter, wishing himself unseen.

He wants peace.

Loom Carplin calls again, closer this time.

The smoke, thick and cloying, claws a cough out of him, and another, and pain lances its way through the weeping flesh of the blaster wound in his back. He sobs, grinding his face into the dust of the crumbled ferrocrete foundations.

Familiar bootsteps approach.

He clenches his eyes shut, tears leaking down his face.

The end.

Another shout, a pause, a snarled curse. Hurried feet, more shouts, hands on his shoulders.

 _I am dead_ , he thinks, lolling limply in strong arms, _I am dead. Just let me be._

“Open your eyes for me, lad,” Loom Carplin rasps into his ear, strain in his rough voice. Cassian’s chest tightens. “Just open your eyes. I know you’re in there.”

The fire moans and wails.

“ _Please,”_ Loom Carplin begs, “We cannot lose all three of you.”

 _Haven’t I lost enough?_ he cries.

Loom gathers him up and stands, turning away from the flames. From peace.

He moans, tongue thick, lips chapped, and Loom quickens his pace, arms tightening around him.

“That’s it, lad,” Loom whispers, “We’ll sort you out quick as you like.”

A whimper, high and strained, breaks from his lips.

“It’s alright,” Loom murmurs, holding him tighter, “It’s alright.”

It isn't alright. Loom doesn’t understand. No one understands.

“Joreth,” he breathes, beginning again.

“Yes,” Loom says tenderly, “I’m here.”

“Please,” he sobs, “ _Please--_ ”

“It’s alright,” Loom murmurs, striding long and sure through the debris, through the twisted, gnarled skeletons of old trees, the remains of men and women reaching for the sky, “You’re alright.”

 _“Please!”_ he cries, _“Let me go!”_

He twists out and away, crashing to the searing earth in a shattered jumble of tangled limbs.

“Cassian,” Loom says, grabbing hold of him firmly, gently, “Cassian, they’re gone.”

“I _know!”_ he spits, throat raw, trembling madly. He claws his way to his feet.

“ _Cassian--”_

He twists away again, small and quick and sure, staggering back to the flames, to the funeral pyre he’d lit. He hears Loom start after him, fear high in the big man’s voice, and he breaks into a run, eyes streaming from the smoke, from the aching desperation to escape a life of hollow guilt.

_“Cassian!”_

_Come back!_ he screams, lurching through the raging heat of relentless life, _It’s my fault!_

Loom tackles him to the ground mercilessly, and a strangled cry tears itself from his lips.

 _“No,”_ he croaks, lashing out. A bare foot catches Loom in the face, and he is free again, fleeing life, choking on the heat of his determination.

He finds them again, twined into each other.

He shatters, clinging, clutching them to his chest.

He screams soundlessly, burned raw.

“Cassian, _please!”_ Loom shouts over the roaring flames in his mind.

He sobs and sobs.

_“Why can’t you just let me go?”_

He feels Looms hands on his shoulders again and crumples, curled on the ground, clinging to death.

“Cassian,” Loom says, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he replies.

He doesn’t see the blaster butt that slams into the back of his head.

He’s taken harder knocks, and he lunges away again.

He sees the blaster butt coming this time and rolls away. It lands against his ear, knocking him back to his knees.

“Please, Cassian,” Loom begs,  _“Please.”_

 _“Kill me!”_ he roars.

Loom’s face twists, crumples. He raises his blaster again, slowly, trembling.

Cassian knows he’s broken him.

Twofold guilt strikes.

He closes his eyes.

He senses the blaster swing through the air.

He surrenders.

* * *

In the aftermath, Shara sits with him.

He knows this.

In his fever-dreams, his mother is always there.

* * *

Shara fists a hand in Loom Carplin’s tunic and shoves him roughly into the wall.

“You almost killed him,” she snarls.

He looks at her.

“I know,” he says so hollowly she steps back, dropping her cocked fist.

Shara sees something broken.

She takes another step back, ruthlessly stomping out flickering flames of grief.

“Sometimes,” Loom Carplin says, staring through her, “I think I have.”

* * *

Travia Chan does not visit.

This is something that Shara Bey never forgives.

* * *

He resigned his commission two days after regaining consciousness, two hours into their latest randomized hyperspace vector, the fleet scattered across the galaxy.

He sent it in on his datapad and limped down to the hangar, eyes fixed on his boots, eyes shielded from the searing shiplight. He was in the cockpit, the engines of a small starship humming, before Shara caught up to him, bag over her shoulder, tears in her eyes.

“After all that,” she said.

He said nothing, knuckles white around the steering yoke, eyes fixed straight ahead.

“You’re just running, you know,” she snarled, “This isn’t going to fix anything.”

“What’s there to fix,” he said hollowly.

_What’s left?_

“Why do you think _I’m_ here?” she demanded, slamming the hatch shut behind her.

She forced her way into the copilot’s seat.

He looked at her then, pained.

“Shara--” he said.

“--Don’t--” she spat.

“--I’m sorry,” he said.

Shara looked away. Took a breath.

She turned back to him.

“It’s not always about you, you know?” she said. Roughly, she threw open the throttle and forced them into the air. “Where are we going?”

Cassian turned back to face the forward windscreen.

“Yavin 4,” he said, voice hard, refined.

Shara blinked.

“Yavin 4,” she repeated.

“We have friends there,” he said.

She looked at him, eyes hard.

“You have family here,” she said.

He turned away and looked out the viewport. Distance stretched within him.

“No,” he said, “I don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along for the (painfully protracted) ride.
> 
> This chapter's notes [here](https://ibohe.tumblr.com/post/161002596566/began-chapter-9-nineteen-part-2).


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